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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29762595">Lost Angeles</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchstick_dolly/pseuds/matchstick_dolly'>matchstick_dolly</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Matches After Midnight [21]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lucifer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalyptic, Angst, Climate Change, Dark, F/M, Fuckruary 2021, Fuckruary 2021: Once Upon A Time, Inequality, Lucifer Morningstar is still the Devil, POV Chloe, Poverty, Sex Work, Sexual Content, the ouroboros that is capitalism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:02:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,011</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29762595</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchstick_dolly/pseuds/matchstick_dolly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In a city ravaged by climate change, corruption, and inequality, lonely Watchkeeper Chloe Decker works to protect the poor, while also surviving as a single mom. With a new, mysterious illness sweeping through the city and the Palmetto gang intercepting government aid, the last thing she needs is a rich nightclub owner complicating her life. Especially one who thinks he's the Devil.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chloe Decker &amp; Trixie Espinoza, Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Matches After Midnight [21]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620778</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Lost Angeles</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My last <a href="https://fuckruarychallenge.tumblr.com">Fuckruary 2021</a> post, as a post-apocalyptic AU.</p><p>Think this one will be 3-4 chapters, but we'll see. :) I thought the same thing about <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29492598/"><em>Marks of the Beast</em></a>, and I've decided to make that a longfic because fuck me that's why. Hope you enjoy the ride with me.</p><p>
  <strong>Heads up if you've been dealing with a lot anxiety because of 2020: you may or may not want to read this.</strong>
</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It always starts with a cough, Chloe thinks, as she watches Ella Lopez and her brothers maneuver Delilah Whitaker's body into a bag. The faded seams of their old hazmat suits stay stitched together on hopes and prayers, but Chloe can't help but envy the plague rats from behind her simple mask and goggles. When she gets home later, she'll strip at the front door—awkward but not unusual in tight, communal living—and head straight to the shower. Only after her skin is red and raw from scrubbing will she hug and kiss her daughter. Even then, she'll worry.</p><p>There isn't a name for this disease, just like there wasn't a name for the last one, or the one before that. The health department is meant to track all of this, but who can keep up? There's always a new infection, a community displaced by fire or tainted water, the rampant hunger exacerbated by all three. Too much to handle on a shoestring budget.</p><p>The soft <em>friiip</em> of the body bag's zipper cuts through the silence of the old, tilted house. With the rolling blackouts, Delilah's bedroom is left dark and sickly, lit only by the hazy light pouring through its sole window and the square utility lamp the Lopezes set on a nightstand. The poor lighting darkens the shadowed fissure running through the teal wall behind Delilah's bed, until it looks like the unblemished drywall on either side might be a curtain to grab and spread wide onto the face of another world.</p><p>As the Lopez brothers shuffle out of the room with the body, Chloe regrets she didn't brave entering when Delilah was still alive—a weird and foolish regret, considering Chloe never even knew the woman until she pulled up Delilah's details. But the pain's still there. It isn't right how people die alone, how their final interactions with the outside world are through windows and screens and gifts of food left on doorsteps. But isolation is the only way to contain suspected outbreaks. Not that most people follow recommendations until it's too late—or even <em>can</em> follow them when they're all living on top of each other. Delilah was an outlier, living alone, even if she wasn't an outlier in dying alone.</p><p>Ella hangs back, stripping the bed and stuffing its sheets into sacks destined for an incinerator. It's a difficult task for one whose hazmat suit is two or three sizes too big—a hand-me-down from places no one wants to think about—but Chloe knows better than to help. She's only here to determine there was no foul play, try to figure out next of kin, and get news about the rest of the city. In the absence of other functioning services, watchkeepers take on many roles.</p><p>Having finished with the bed, Ella tosses the waste bags aside and stands a few feet away, her blue-gloved hands on her yellow hips. Past the curved, windowed face of the hazmat suit, drops of sweat roll down her soft, fawn complexion. The window fogs rhythmically as she breathes. It's hot as hell right now, even without a full getup.</p><p>"What's the verdict?" Chloe asks, already knowing the answer.</p><p>"Def whatever this cough is that's been going around. No punctures or strangulation bruising or anything like that. Big sweat marks on her gown, too—high fever, I'm betting. I'll forward you whatever the coroner says in their report—assuming they bother."</p><p>Chloe nods and makes notes on her phone. "Did you, uh, happen to know her?"</p><p>"Nah, but a neighbor saw us on our way in. Apparently Delilah was some singer at a bar? She didn't know which."</p><p>"Wow." Chloe looks around the sparsely-furnished bedroom with some envy. It's not much, but Delilah must have been some kind of good to afford a place of her own. "I'll try to figure it out and get in touch with her employer and any next of kin. I guess that's everything unless you've got news?"</p><p>"Actually, I do," Ella starts with a tremulous smile. "You want the good news or the bad news? Also, spoiler alert: neither thing's great."</p><p>"Story of our lives, right?" Chloe returns the weak smile. "I don't know. Hit me with the bad news."</p><p>"Okay, so, not to freak you out, but the bad news is this shit's sprea<em>ding</em>, and fast. Delilah here was our fourth pickup with these symptoms today, and it's, what, eleven?"</p><p>"Noon."</p><p>"Yeah, so, that's bad, 'cause we didn't have any coughers two months ago, you know, outside of the usual cancer and asthma cases. Yesterday we had eight. I thought it was just in New Long Beach, but—"</p><p>"But now it's here," Chloe finishes. </p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"Which means it's probably all over the city." Just another invisible invader. "Who else have you seen getting sick?"</p><p>"I guess that's the other bad news," Ella answers with some reluctance. "It's mainly people like Delilah."</p><p>"Young, you mean." Delilah couldn't have been any older than late twenties.</p><p>"Yeah. And...there are kids being hit by this one." She winced. "I'm sorry, Decker."</p><p>Chloe swallows hard as she thinks of her seven-year-old before resolutely putting fears of the worst out of her mind. Trixie is fine right now. Worrying about her will not change whether she gets this infection or not. But there'll be extra hand-washing starting tonight, new rules about social interactions. Trixie will hate it all. </p><p>"What's the good news?"</p><p>"Some friends of mine in Detroit are reporting similar cases and deaths."</p><p>"That sounds like bad news, Ella."</p><p>"Yeah, well, I did say, right? But anyway, get this. There's this old vaccine that might work against it? Apparently this might be a mutation of some virus we thought we'd eradicated in the past. Or that's popped up again." </p><p>With effort, Chloe manages not to roll her eyes. There's always some supposed miracle cure, though she's grateful this one sounds scientific, if unlikely. In the boarding house she lives in, a woman who lives down the hall swears by cod liver oil in the morning and garlic shavings in socks. She reeks enough to prove she practices what she preaches, but Chloe's certain Melody gets just as sick as the rest of them. </p><p>"Let's hope your friends are right," Chloe says, and smiles, though she feels hopeless. Even if an old vaccine does work against something like this, the odds of getting it manufactured and distributed among Los Angeles' poorest are… Well, it's not where she's gonna focus her energy. "Thanks, Ella. You'll keep me posted and help spread the usual safety protocols?"</p><p>Lifting her hands, she gives two thumbs up. "You know it." </p><p>"Great. Well, I'll see you on—"</p><p>"Hey, Chloe?" </p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>"You holdin' up okay?"</p><p>Her mouth opens and closes uncertainly behind her three-ply mask. "I'm fine. Why?"</p><p>"It's just I heard the Palmetto Gang's been getting in the way of food distribution around here."</p><p>The mention of Palmetto exhausts Chloe, but she nods. "They've been intercepting deliveries."</p><p>"Fucking pendejos."</p><p>"I'm doing what I can, cracking down on sellers, but…" She shakes her head and sighs. "They're tired—and afraid. Paolucci offers them a cut from his scheming or a beat down if they won't agree to cooperate. Either by undercutting legit sellers with stolen government goods or by, you know, <em>actually</em> beating them."</p><p>"That blows. You're being safe, right?"</p><p>Chloe smirks against the cotton over her mouth. "I try," she says, patting the pistol at her hip. At least, she hopes that's true.</p><p>The bulky head of Ella's suit moves with her nod. "Just let me know if you and Trix need anything, okay?"</p><p>"Oh, Ella, you don't have to—"</p><p>"No, I do, okay? My brothers and me...we don't have a lot, but… I mean, it's kinda awful and all, but being a plague rat? It's a solid job for, you know, really bad reasons or whatever. And I've taken up hydroponics in my downtime, so if you guys need food or anything else, I just… I want you to know I'm your girl, okay?"</p><p>Tears blur Chloe's vision. "We'll be okay," she says shakily. "But thank you."</p><p>"Hey, somebody's gotta look out for the watchkeeper, right?"</p>
<hr/><p>It's late afternoon when Chloe pedals her bike down San Marino. The street is as lively as usual, filled with people of all ages and backgrounds hanging out, building or fixing things, making small trades or sales, some of them illicit, some of them not. Several children kick a soccer ball while wielding sticks, their goal a massive pothole in the street from which the ball easily bounces free. Chloe scans the group for Trixie and is thankful when she doesn't find her daughter among them.</p><p>Braking near each cluster of people, Chloe tells everyone to wear a mask and wash their hands—the same, tired drill from last year. Some thank her for the warning, others complain but will comply, and a few are angry. She tries to remember they're not angry at her. They're angry at everything else, at the situation. Not that reminding herself that quells her urge to punch them.</p><p>"Why the fuck are we even trying?" Brian barks. He wipes sweat from his dark brow as he rises from the ground, where he's in the process of fixing an old computer. The gold-plated chain around his neck says wannabe-gangster, while the tube of thermal paste in his hand screams nerd. "People are gonna die, anyway. We all got our time."</p><p>"True," she concedes, "but it's children and young adults getting sick, so maybe you should give a damn."</p><p>"No little virus is gon' kill me."</p><p>"And the kids?"</p><p>"Not my kids." He shrugs a shoulder. "Not my problem."</p><p>"Uh-huh. Well, I've got a kid, Brian, and she'll be your problem if I see you anywhere near her without a mask. Got it?" </p><p>"Whatever," he scoffs. "And, hey, you know I go by 2Vile now!"</p><p>Chloe holds back a laugh as she climbs back onto her bike. "Yeah, I heard." She calls over her shoulder as she pedals away, "Wear a damn mask, <em>Brian</em>!"</p><p>By daylight, she almost likes San Marino Street and its motley residents. It's easy to forget what the street becomes after dark, when people get needy and greedy and angry after a few too many swigs of moonshine. Hard not to lose it when you live cheek by jowl only by the grace of basic income and odd jobs, neither of which will ever afford you anything better, cleaner, or more secure than the noisy, grimy boarding houses. Not that Chloe's any different. She's no salaried official. People pay her in baked goods, homemade gifts, and thank-yous. A room with a bed is all she can afford, even with her side hustle.</p><p>She could try to get on the city police force—keepers make the transition sometimes—but she'd never sleep at night if she made the cut. The LAPD doesn't serve the people. It protects nice houses in the Hills and winks at Paolucci while his thugs hijack trucks filled with food boxes that are supposed to make it into every home, but only sometimes do.</p><p>Everything's okay, she reminds herself, or at least it could be worse. She just wishes it were <em>better</em>. What kind of city, what kind of world, is Trixie growing up in? </p><p>Chloe stops in front of the faded green boarding house she's called home since she was fourteen. Three stories tall, the blocky house bursts at its prefabricated seams, no different from the rest on San Marino, except in color. Fragments of speech can be heard from the street, as every window is open while each boarder begs for a cool breeze. The mayor promised an air conditioner in every boarding house window as part of his bid for election. Three years in, and everybody still sleeps naked to survive the nights.</p><p>Beneath the shade of the house's covered landing, Petey is waiting for her like always, sitting on a wobbly chair he's dragged from the kitchen. Shelling peas into his trusty, stained wok, he's wearing nothing but a pair of Hawaiian shorts, his pale, flabby chest sagging in layered wrinkles above. They wave to each other, and he watches as she dismounts her bike and shoves it into its designated locker, which promptly subtracts money from her account. God, she's cutting it close this month.</p><p>"You look like you've had a day," Petey comments as she stomps up the squat steps onto the porch.</p><p>Great to know her face is screaming <em>Fed Up</em>, even behind her mask. "It definitely could have been better. Also, you need to wear a mask again, and"—she huffs—"I have to strip." </p><p>He calmly nods, as if she hasn't just laid bad news on at his feet. "Want to talk about it?" he asks, focusing more closely on the pods he's snapping.</p><p>Unbuckling her gun belt and shoving her jeans down her legs, she rolls her eyes. Petey's as close to a parental figure as she's had in adulthood, and he's the man Trixie calls Grandpa. Chloe loves him, but she'd give anything to avoid the third degree. She feels like Trixie looks when she asks about her day at school.</p><p>"What's there to say?" Chloe counters. "It's more of the same, Petey." Always more of the same. People hurting, people dying, and no end in sight to any of it. Still, she wakes up each morning and moves about her area, mediating disputes, getting food and medicine where they need to go, protecting the innocent as best she can. Every day she is a keeper, like her father before her, and every day she becomes a little more jaded. "I'm just tired, you know? This damn virus going around, and the Palmetto stuff..."</p><p>She sees Petey nod as her t-shirt slips over her head. "We're lucky to have you, kid. Most people know that."</p><p>"They have a funny way of showing it," she says, thinking of all the pain they could avoid if people just cared a little more for each other.</p><p>"I know, but don't give up on us just yet."</p><p>Chloe's shoulders sag. Her right bra strap is loose and slips down to her bicep. "I haven't." Picking up her clothes and gun, she touches the doorknob to the boarding house and wonders if the virus lurks there, deadly and unseen. "Don't forget to mask up, Petey." He waves at her in exasperation, but she knows he'll follow the recommendation. </p><p>Inside, the boarding house is full of people going about their day. In the rec room, long-time boarder Jackson Miller looks up from a card game amid a room full of VR heads and lets out a wolf whistle. "Hot mama coming through!"</p><p>Snorting and lifting a middle finger, Chloe doesn't pause as she calls out, "You know what it means when I come home like this!" There's a unified groan behind her. Even the gamers who can't see her know what she means. "That's right. I'm gonna kick your asses if you don't start wearing a mask."</p><p>The dining room smells of stir fry and is swelteringly hot, even with the windows and doors thrown wide. Petey's wife, a small Latina woman named Grace, looks up from where she's setting plates and utensils on the two long benches they dine on each night. Her eyes skirt over Chloe's underclothes. A small grimace pinches her soft face, fanning the lines at the corners of her eyes.</p><p>"Trixie upstairs?" Chloe asks. </p><p>"Doing homework. I see something's going around again."</p><p>"Seems it," Chloe replies with a tight smile. "So if Trix comes down before I'm cleaned up, tell her to wash her hands and put her mask on, would you? We'll start eating upstairs."</p><p>Grace nods without comment. She's a steadfast woman of few words, and Chloe always thinks of her as a friend in the trenches. This boarding house is better fed and cleaned thanks to Petey and Grace, and hopefully a little safer with a watchkeeper on its premises. It's something. A little stability in a crumbling city. </p><p>Chloe wanders upstairs, taking care to slink against cracked and faded walls whenever she passes another tenant. They glance at her bare, white skin nervously, even as they make jokes or halfhearted propositions. But everyone knows what it means when she comes home with her clothes in her arms and a mask still firmly in place. </p><p>At the end of the second story's main hallway, she turns right and shoves her way into the beige, utilitarian bathroom with its open shower, line of sinks, and rows of toilet stalls, one of which sports a sloppy drawing of three stick figures fucking. Eventually, someone will wash it off. And someone else will draw it again. The war's been waged for years.</p><p>Bagging her contaminated clothes, Chloe avoids the communal plumbing, ignoring the round nakedness of a woman in the showers and the unpleasant sounds and scents of being human that are coming from a nearby toilet. Derek Franklin, Jackson's big, white, hairy-backed boyfriend, spits toothpaste into a sink and squints at his crooked teeth in the mirror. As a courtesy, they all pretend not to see or hear each other. It's the only way to survive in such close quarters.</p><p>Two sleek, white doors stand at the far end of the bathroom, their quality marking them as glaringly out of place. On each translucent door, green-colored dots form a single word: VACANT. Swiping her wrist over the leftmost door's payment panel, Chloe types her pin on the small display that appears in response. A lock clicks free as money is withdrawn from her account, and the door's opacity thickens to solid white. The green dots turn red and reshape to read OCCUPIED.</p><p>She sighs in pleasure as she enters the warmly lit private stall and sets aside her gun belt and bag of clothes. Paying for privacy would be a luxury if she hadn't turned it into a business expense. And even though it <em>is</em> business, it's still a luxury. The single-occupancy bathroom is nicer from lack of use, not to mention that paid stalls are the only area in the boarding house that is professionally cleaned by San Marino's developer. This year, they even added a heat lamp. Sometimes you get what you pay for.</p><p>The tiles within the walk-in shower are a deep, dark grey; the walls, bamboo encased in glass. A pleasant floral scent permeates the space, and the porcelain of the toilet and sink gleam. Soft, recessed lighting lines the edges of the small room and is a kind glow upon any tired face that dares peer into the mirror. The private stalls are a world away from the world outside. </p><p>Chloe washes her hands twice in moisturizing soap, peels off her underwear and mask, and then washes her hands again. Even with the forgiving lighting, she looks like a wild, skittish animal without the shield of her mask. She battles the panic that inevitably rises with the discovery of each new infection. It's impossible not to think of outbreaks like she thinks of wildfires and earthquakes. They're just a thing you have to live with, and yet… </p><p>And yet, what if this is the big one? As if there's just one, as if there's some endpoint. As if it's not all related, every little bit of it.</p><p>What happens if <em>Chloe</em> gets sick? No way Trixie's father will step up and be a dad. Are Petey and Grace too old to care for another little girl? Will they get sick, too? And what if… What happens if Trixie gets sick? Chloe's fears close around her—more tightly than any mask or congestion, like a hand squeezing her windpipe.</p><p>What if she's already sick? What if the way her heart is pounding is a symptom? </p><p>"Stop," she tells her reflection. </p><p>Fear doesn't change anything. Fear makes you careless or, worse, incapacitates. </p><p>Leaning on the porcelain edge of the sink, her cheeks balloon outward as she puffs a gust of air and clears her head. Turning resolutely, she touches fingers to a screen on the wall, selecting a cheery pop playlist and programming the shower. She hums happily as a jazzy beat fills the room and water rains down beside her, reaching her selected temperature in mere seconds. Stepping into the spray, she looks down at her toes as they pinken, her hair gathering in wavy strands around the hard lines of her face. Steam rises up from the grey tile, curling around her ankles and calves. Chloe relaxes knowing the water is the good kind, desalinated, multi-filtered.</p><p>Everything's okay. </p><p>She rinses off her phone before flipping a tripod leg on its protective case and propping it on a stack of towels on a nearby shelf. With a little trial and error, she frames most of her body, from shoulders to knees, in the image. </p><p>Satisfied with the angle, she opens the Caliente app and presses record, one hand idly squeezing a breast. </p><p><em>InHotWater</em> has logged on. </p><p>The live viewer count ticks upward. She doesn't have a big following, nor would she want one, but viewership has grown since she opened the account a year ago. She never expected to keep it, but the tips she receives, meager as they are, make life easier, and the fans who send additional gifts and messages are unexpectedly kind, if predictably horny. A few she exchanges nude photos with, usually for a price, but not always. It doesn't mean anything, and really, that's what she likes. It's nice to be wanted in a context where no one can expect things she can't give.</p><p>Turning her back on the camera, she sways beneath the water, letting the heat and movement loosen muscles that are so often bunched. She falls into herself, into the part of herself that is separate from mother, friend, and watchkeeper. Into that lonely pit of her spirit that's always burning with desire, as some secret desperate to be shared.</p><p>She takes her time, paying to wash and condition her hair. She watches herself on the mirrored screen as she rubs soap over her petite breasts. Bubbles skitter down her taut stomach, bursting on hip bones and beneath arrowing water. </p><p>Teasing the curves of her body with featherlight touches, she aches from the passage of time. No one has gotten close to her in years. She doesn't dare let them. But she's lonely behind the walls she's built, almost shivering with want for companionship. </p><p>Do the strangers watching her see it? How many would warm her bed if they could, if the world were different? The thought sits low in her body. </p><p>Burying one hand in her hair and the other between her legs, she rolls her hips to a heavy Latin beat. Cool glass at her back, she cants her hips and spreads her legs, slick fingers circling gently and then frantically. Her chin and mouth drop into view of the camera, and she should care, but instead she only bites her lip. Can only imagine another's hands, another's body. Flesh on flesh. Lips brushing hers and descending, teeth nipping just shy of pain.</p><p>She comes suddenly and hard, the horrors of the day unraveling between her legs. The moan she bottles at the back of her throat passes as nothing so much as a relieved whimper. Relaxing against the wall, she lets the water soothe her tingling skin, while the music brings her back to the present. On its tower of towels, her phone's screen fills with bubbles shaped like chili peppers as users leave her tips and messages in English, Spanish, and Chinese. </p><p>Pushing away the shower, she grabs her phone carefully to keep her face away from the lens and enjoys the high of the compliments. </p><p><em>Think I died and went to heaven</em>, reads one chili pepper before it fades away.</p><p>With a delighted laugh and a peace sign thrown at breast level, Chloe logs off. The room is smaller and quieter without her unseen audience. </p><p>After washing one last time, she wraps a towel around her body and leaves the stall, her skin pinkened by heat and lust. </p>
<hr/><p>Chloe's voice trails off behind her mask as she reads the last line to her daughter's favorite book. "The end," she says definitively, and sets the reader on their bedside table. </p><p>"Can't we read one more story?" Trixie whispers, while Chloe turns off the blue-shaded lamp.</p><p>"Not tonight, monkey." </p><p>Turning on her side, Chloe cups her daughter's cheek fondly. Trixie is seven, precocious, brown-eyed, and button-nosed. When she smiles, she reveals a gap-toothed grin that hints at her mischievous spirit. But tonight she isn't bouncy or smiling at all. She's young, sure, but old enough to remember the illness that swept through L.A. when she was four. There aren't too many people over the age of seventy in some areas because of it. </p><p>And she's old enough to remember how her mother behaved during those dark days, to remember the one and only time she ever got a spanking for trying to tear Chloe's mask off during the heat of a tantrum. Reaching out, Trixie mirrors her mother's touch, cupping Chloe's cheek, her small fingers rubbing back and forth along the edge of a different but similar mask now. Really, Trixie should be wearing one, too, but Chloe can't bring herself to require it in their room.</p><p>She watches her daughter process the reality that's unfolding, lets her come to her own thoughts and conclusions. Chloe always appreciated how her father did that for her, and she tries to do the same for her child now. Outside, a car alarm is blaring, and a woman is screaming at a man. It makes Chloe focus on the bright street lamp that shines into their bedroom. She wishes she could close the window, but it would be too hot. It could all be worse, she reminds herself. They're alive and sheltered, their bellies full. The people yelling aren't them.</p><p>"Mommy?"</p><p>Chloe blinks, refocusing. "Yeah, monkey?" </p><p>"Are you sick?"</p><p>"Oh, I don't think so, babe." </p><p>Please, she prays to no one, don't let me get sick.</p><p>Trixie sucks on her lip thoughtfully. "Am <em>I</em> sick?"</p><p>Her fingers slip away from the edge of the mask as Chloe sits up on an elbow. She tamps down the panic rising in her chest while she subtly slides her hand up to her daughter's forehead. The skin there is warm, but it's a too-hot-in-this-damn-room warm, not a feverish warm. </p><p>"You feeling okay?" she asks nonetheless, and Trixie nods beneath her hand. "Then we're gonna say you're fine." She lies back on the bed and tries to soothe her nerves. "But you tell me if you start to feel funny, okay? If you get a sore throat or a bad tummy or anything like that."</p><p>"Okay, Mommy."</p><p>"And if you do get sick, you know I'd never let anything happen to you, right?"</p><p>At that, Trixie grins her gap-toothed smile and nods. But, really, she doesn't get it, and it's just as well. Chloe's not sure she understands it herself. She'd avoided motherhood for so much of her adult life, far longer than most women these days. She never imagined it would feel like this, like a vise grip on her heart, the most wonderful pain. There is <em>nothing</em> she wouldn't do for the girl beside her. </p><p>Questions asked and answered, Trixie calms and shifts closer, pushing into the thin blanket Chloe puts between them on the double bed in a foolish attempt to teach her daughter it's okay to sleep alone and have your own space. Trixie doesn't care about any of that and curls into her mother like a living hot water bottle. Quietly, Chloe is glad, even if it makes her sweat, and the mask over her mouth clings horribly.</p><p>Exhausted, but unable to sleep, she holds her phone aloft and pulls up Delilah's file, which finally came through during dinner. As a watchkeeper, Chloe doesn't have the same access to databases that the cops do, even if she's the one doing all the community work in her little pocket of South L.A. It takes time to get information; sometimes even a palm has to be greased to get the ball moving.</p><p>Delilah's identification photo is nice. She had a sweet smile, green eyes full of life. Surprising, almost, considering the darkness at the edges of her profile. Parents dead when she was young, picked up on prostitution charges at twenty, but that was years ago. No troubles with the law since—or at least she'd not been caught. She'd danced and sung at a place called Lux for years.</p><p>Searching the name, Chloe ends up on a website for, of all things, a nightclub off Sunset. God, it's a <em>fancy</em> a nightclub, too, judging by the pictures. The dark opulence of the bar is cut through by clever mood lighting, half-moon booths, and dancers in cages. Kind of a far cry from the rundown dives she tends to deal with as a keeper. </p><p>Amazing what the rich get up to when normal people are too busy scrounging for scraps to notice. Still, Delilah wasn't rich, even if she could afford a place of her own, and her employer and coworkers might be the closest things she had to a family. Chloe will visit the bar sometime tomorrow, break the bad news. Someone should know what happened. Maybe she can even convince the owner to implement a mask policy. </p><p>A bedroom door slams shut in the hallway, and Trixie stirs, snuffling against her mother's ribs. Chloe sighs. At least the car alarm and yelling stopped a while ago. Letting her phone drop to the bed, she closes her eyes and breathes deep, in and out. As she drifts off to sleep, she wonders what kind of rich asshole would want to party in a city like this. </p>
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